On my last day observing I saw the students singing a book they had never encountered. One student had taken some words from several songs and the way they are sung in each one to essentially create a new song. The other student sang them in like a hymn. Every song this student sang was turned into a hymn, including songs like Itsy Bitsy Spider and Happy Birthday. I believe these students knew what some of the words meant beyond the singing by how they would alter their voice as they said the words. Like if the words "Oh my!" appeared in the text both students would say it in a higher pitch to show surprise or dismay. I don't know if they were able to distinguish all words and their meanings, but I do believe they were doing more than just singing.

I think that it is great that these two students were able to communicate by way of music. I would think that in the beginning that this could be a good thing, but are teachers going beyond this and... more

In this case, I think that there was more than just singing that was going on. I do think that we need to help ASD students distinguish the difference and we need to be careful how we are teaching... more